The Brave New World of Fritz Brandtner/Le Meilleur des Mondes de Fritz Brandtner by Helen Duffy, Frances K. Smith (review)

HUMANITIES 505 development of O'Brian's thesis reflects the author's strong inclination towards the side of art history that focuses on literature. In this essay he brings Milne's verbal ideas up against the well-known writings of Clive Bell and Roger Fry, early formulators of modernist theory, and demonstrates that they provided Milne with a theoretical framework and 'a diction matching his own unsentimental aims' (P29). O'Brian tempers this argument by pointing to the admiration Milne had for both Thoreau and Ruskin, which seems to contradict modernist ideas. However Milne, O'Brian concludes, was above all a painter, whose work had to reflect the complexities and ambiguities of his life; he could not afford the luxury of an unshakable logical aesthetic. O'Brian might have balanced his discussion throughout the book by providing other Similarly valid counterpoints to modernist theory, which offers only a partial understanding of early-twentieth-century North American art in general. The strength of Milne's attraction to his subjects should never be played down. While O'Brian constantly defines Milne's emphasis on formal qualities as an issue full of human complexity, he still finds 'contradictions' to this which might be interpreted more productively in other ways. In particular, there are the fantasy pictures painted in the 1940S and early 1950S, which the artist himself called 'subject pictures: These are a fascinating result of changes in his life, working methods, and ideas that are, in fact, documented in letters (as early as 8 October 1933 he referred to 'a rather curious development for me.... absolutely no new motive, but a consciousness of subject or rather title. ') It is the discussion of the fantasy paintings in O'Brian's final essay that seems, while subtle and intelligent, to be most in need of a slight broadening of viewpoint. A refreshing aspect of the book comes from O'Brian's enthusiasm for good writing; even the quotes chosen from reviews by early newspaper critics reflect this enthusiasm in their lively phrasing. The segment of D.G. Jones's poem'A Garland of Milne' (p 118) is a beautiful inclusion. O'Brian is a writer himself, presently completing a doctorate in art history at Harvard. He has set a high standard for Milne criticism in this finely composed book of essays. (LORA SENeCHAL CARNEY) Helen Duffy and Frances K. Smith. The Brave New World of Fritz Brandtnerl Le Meilleur des Mondes de Fritz Brandtner Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University 19B2. 96, illus. En tant qu'historienne de I'art montreaIaise, nous ne pouvons qU'etre honteuse, voire indignee, du fait que l'extraordinaire exposition Fritz Brandtner, un peintre dont la majeure partie de la vie professionnell€ se passe aMontreal, ne nous soit arrivee qu'en fin de course et dans un musee dont la vocation premiere n'est pas d'exposer I'art contemporain, Ie Musee McCord. Qui plus est, cette venue a Montreal ne semblait pas prevue au depart puisqu'on ne la retrouve pas a J'itineraire de J'exposition , annonce en page xxiii du catalogue. Qu'on nous comprenne bien; nous n'en avons pas contre Ie tres beau travail de recherche mene par Helen Duffy et Frances K. Smith qui, dans un catalogue d'une centaine de pages, bien documente et ilJustre (12 reproductions couleurs, 26 en noir et blanc), bilingue de surcrolt, nous fournissent, pour la premiere fois, une synthese importante des donnees biographiques et de la conception artistique de Brandtner. Nous en avons encore moins c~ntre Ie Musee McCord grace auqueJ, finalement, Ie public montrealais a pu connaitre J'reuvre d'un de ses peintres modernes les plus meconnus. En fait nous en avons c~ntre une certaine conception de J'histoire de J'art dont la position frole Ie chauvinisme. Elle consiste It faire 'naitre' toutes reflexions sur la modernite en art et ultimement, toutes revolutions abstraites, avec les seuls Borduas et Pellan. Partout elle ne s'interesse qu'lt ces derniers. Or, J'exposition Brandtner nous a bien montre que ce peintre avait experimente des reuvres dont les procedes picturaux s'inspiraient soit du Cubisme, de J'Expressionnisme ou de J'Abstraction gestuelle...